Capital Union, A Read Online Free Page B

in the saucer and heard footsteps crossing the kitchen floor above, and then water running. Maybe Mrs MacDougall was also lonely if she was cleaning Professor Schramml’s empty flat again. I thought maybe I should try to be more neighbourly and invite her in for a cup of tea. I ran up the spiral stairs and chapped on the door, which had a brass knocker in the shape of a thistle. There was no reply, so I tried again, and then Mrs MacDougall’s voice said, ‘Who is it?’
    ‘It’s me, Agnes,’ I replied.
    ‘What do you want?’
    I was surprised because she was normally so quick to open a door. ‘Nothing. I wanted to ask you something.’
    ‘Just a minute.’
    I heard her footsteps moving away and then some keys being lifted and Mrs MacDougall came out into the stairwell with her pinny folded in her hand. I glimpsed a dresser covered with a white dust-sheet in the hall. Mrs MacDougall’s eyes were very blue, which I hadn’t noticed before.
    ‘Couldn’t you wait until I am home to speak to me?’
    ‘I’m sorry, Mrs MacDougall. I heard you cleaning and since it is just you and me, I thought you might like a cup of tea.’
    ‘You heard me cleaning? Have you nothing better to do than to sit listening to folk going about their business? If you have so much time on your hands, this stair needs a bit of attention, but I expect your man will be back soon and he will be looking for his tea. You should be too busy for a fly cup at this time of the day, Agnes.’
    ‘Well, he is going to be late tonight. We were at an SNP conference.’
    ‘Don’t talk to me about that gang,’ she said, pushing past me and running her finger along the banister. ‘It is time this war ended so that we can get sensible men like Professor Schramml back. He always took his turn on the stair and went that wee bit extra with the duster.’ She looked at me. ‘He is sadly missed.’
    She was just one of those wrong-headed folk. She clumped down the stairs and banged the door of her flat shut. I sat down on the landing and it grew very quiet. I knew the family opposite the Professor had gone to their cottage in Fife, and the two bachelors on the top floor were away fighting. I grew cold sitting there looking up at the skylight and I leant over the railing to see how far it was to the bikes chained at the bottom. I counted twenty-one steps down to my front door.
    In my bedroom, I took off my dress and lay down under the quilt, and even though it was only six o’clock, I tried tosleep. At the farm, the coos would be coming in to be milked and for some reason the thought of them walking together, with their heads nodding, made me want to greet.
    Jeff and Douglas didn’t get in until two in the morning, laughing as they stumbled through the hall to the kitchen. I thought I heard Jeff saying, ‘It will all be different when you are Gauleiter of Scotland, Douglas.’ There was the clink of whisky glasses being put on a tray. I thought about going through to tell them there was soup in the pan, but Jeff put his head round the door before I could get up, and slurred, ‘How is my sleeping beauty?’ He didn’t wait for an answer.

6
    Douglas slept on the divan in Jeff’s study but was gone before breakfast, and Jeff left after a cup of tea and a couple of aspirin . Later that day, I could see from my kitchen window it was one of those sudden, heavy rainstorms that all farmers dread. The trees at the back of the house began to shake as the ball of wind jumped from one to another, pushing the soft, summer leaves down. Sunlight struck Arthur’s Seat in the distance, turning it gold against a charcoal sky and it grew darker and darker until, just for a second, the wind dropped and the first splashes of rain fell. It was soon driving against the glass at the front of the flat and the stair door banged. After running round to push up all the windows with my pole, as Jeff still hadn’t replaced the ropes, I looked over at the empty mansion behind us. The